Berks Nature and Tami Shimp were meant to be.
Both were born in the same month and year — April 1974.
What started as an internship at the Berks County Conservancy, now Berks Nature, while she was a student at Penn State has turned into a career that has seen her in a number of roles, culminating in the presidency following the retirement last December of Kim Murphy, who had held the post for 21 years.
In February, Shimp will celebrate 30 years with Berks County’s premier conservation organization.
She took some time to reflect on her career and her goals while preparing for Thursday’s 18th annual State of the Environment breakfast at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, 701 Penn St.
The theme of the breakfast will be “Beyond Four Walls: Find Healing in Nature.”
Shimp will be joined by Rick Perez, chief executive officer of the Olivet Boys & Girls Club and Reading High boys basketball coach, to promote the natural places in the city of Reading.
“I invited him because it is a topic that hasn’t been talked about enough, and it’s helping everyone feel like they belong in nature,” she said. “The city of Reading has some awesome green spaces. Not everybody knows that.”
Berks Nature will be debuting a new map that showcases over 60 green spaces of varying sizes in the city, Shimp said.
“Other communities are trying to make space,” she said. “Reading has it.”
A second point of the program will focus on how being outside is good for an individual both physically and mentally, and a third is focusing on tools to help address the mental health crisis in the community youth, she said.
Rick Perez, Reading High boys basketball coach and CEO of the Olivet Boys & Girls Club, will be a presenter at Berks Nature’s 18th annual State of the Environment breakfast on Thursday. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
“If anybody knows what it’s like to grow up in Reading, and if anyone has the respect of the youth and the target audience that we need to reach in Reading, it’s Rick,” Shimp said. “And Rick uses nature like we do. He’s out every afternoon, and he gets it.”
Career path
Shimp has grown with Berks Nature and has been part of its transitions from a base at the Old Mill in Wyomissing, to the waterworks building in Reading City Park to the planning and construction of the Nature Place in Angelica Creek Park.
When she started, there were five people in the organization, and now she oversees 26 full- and part-time employees and a cadre of seasonal workers. During the past year, 900 volunteers put in over 6,000 hours of work.
One staff member oversees the volunteer program and also the four watershed associations that are under Berks Nature’s umbrella: Maiden Creek, Tulpehocken Creek, Hay Creek and Angelica Creek.
“We’re covering a majority of the county, but there are some watersheds that would be deserving and ready to get an association started so they can do some good work right there in their own backyard,” Shimp said.
She recalled one of her first projects when she was hired full time in 1997 that set her on a career path in land preservation, estate planning and fundraising.
“I started meeting our landowners and just fell in love with the land protection piece of what we do,” she said. “It’s all interrelated.”
That first project resulted in the preservation of the 180-acre Historic Dreibelbis Farm along the Maiden Creek near Virginville.
“Mark and Jeanine Dreibelbis, I still have a relationship with them to this day,” Shimp said. “Mark is a great volunteer of ours. We see them pretty often, so it is a full circle. I went to the fall festival this year, just to visit, and it’ll always have a special place with me.”
She has overseen the creation of a nature preschool that involves over 100 families in the course of the year.
“When I fast forward five to 10 years, I want to see more locations scattered around our community,” she said, “so that more children get this experience.”
Shimp has several other goals she would like to achieve during her tenure as president.
“I want to see active watershed associations representing all of our major watersheds,” she said. “Forest protection is booming.”
Berks Nature has received local, municipal and county support to help make those goals a reality, she said.
And circling back to the theme of Thursday’s program, she wants to see trails and public spaces routinely accessed and safe for everyone.
“Everyone belongs to nature,” Shimp said. “Everyone belongs in nature.”
Tammy Shimp’s first project when she was hired full time at Berks Nature resulted in the preservation of the 180-acre Historic Dreibelbis Farm along the Maiden Creek near Virginville. From left, Dave Chandler of Kutztown, Robert Haas of Oley and Brian Dreibelbis of Downingtown push a sled-load of ice on the ice pond during the Pennsylvania German ice harvesting demonstration at Dreibelbis Farm in February 2025. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)